I lost my grandmother in September. Though she had a number of health problems, her death was still sudden and unexpected.

Grief is not a new concept, I’ve known quite a bit of it, but that does not make it any less difficult to face. Every experience I have had with grief has been different and unpredictable, and even though months have gone by since my grandmother’s passing, today grief crept up and hit me from behind like an unexpected wave and dragged me down into the depths.

Death’s a bitch.

There’s nothing anyone can say to comfort you, there’s nothing anyone can say to make that aching hole feel smaller or full again. It’s just something you have to feel and the more you avoid it, the worse it will be when you finally do feel it.

It’s funny how random things catch you by surprise and remind you, “Oh, hey–there’s an empty space where that human used to be.” An entire life, someone who had likes and dislikes suddenly isn’t around to like or dislike things anymore, they can’t see or hear or touch. They can’t call you a dozen times a day with nothing to say.

They’re not around to annoy you, or make you laugh.

My grandmother was a bit of a hoarder, and if she had one of something you can bet she had ten hidden somewhere. We’re trying to clear out her house and most of her stuff is being sent to auction and that, too, is a sneaky grief inducing thing. To have strangers come into your loved one’s home and go through their stuff with varying degrees of excitement and speed, talking like they’re shopping in a warehouse instead of helping you say goodbye to an entire life–let me tell you, it’s violating.

I don’t think I’ve stopped crying all day, from the moment I walked into that house and smelled that smell that came with Grandma’s home, to watching these people pack her life away and chatter about how much they could get for it, I think I felt my heart break all over again.

I don’t think I really have a point to this post, I just needed a place to vent and get all these thoughts out of my head to free up some space.